Carlos Correa, Houston Astros - Correa is starting to heat up at the plate after a slow start in comparison to the number she put up in his rookie season. He raked out three hits and a homer for the second time in his past three games, with an 0-for-4 clunker thrown in there in the middle. Correa has still been hitting the ball hard this year with his average exit velocity matching that of Mike Trout (90.7 MPH) and his fangraphs page doubles down on that with his hard hit rate being up a couple percentage points from last season. His whole overall package though has been fantastic leading to a 158wRC+, even if his fantasy numbers may be a bit down from where you likely had to grab him.
Danny Salazar, Cleveland Indians - Danny Salazar was dominant Friday with 7.2 shutout innings and nine strikeouts against a Royals team that strikes out at the fifth lowest rate in baseball. That gives him two starts in a row with at least 7.0 innings pitched and at least eight strikeouts and he lowered his ERA to 1.91 in the outing. The only things that may be holding him back from jumping up into the ace category of fantasy pitchers is his near 4.00 BB/9. He's only walked two batters in each of his last two games so we are seeing some improvement in his rate after never walking less than three batters in each of his first four starts, two of which he didn't even make it through six full innings.
Corey Dickerson, Tampa Bay Rays - Dickerson continues for his career to abuse right handed pitching with his sixth homer of the season and every one of those homers has come off a righty. In 11 games off of lefties he has just one lone hit (.056 AVG) which was a single and has five strikeouts. In daily lineup leagues, Dickerson is virtually at the point where he needs to be benched against lefties but he's a must start in your lineup against right handed pitching. He owns a 137 wRC+ against righties this season despite the fact he's only hitting for a .233 average against them.
Taijuan Walker, Seattle Mariners - Taijuan Walker wasn't good on Friday but the storyline for him is that he left the game after the second inning with neck spasms. He had already been tagged for three runs in those two innings (one earned) and had allowed two long balls, so he likely did some damage on teams' ratios and singlehandedly obliterated DFS lineups. We may be finally witnessing the Tiajuan Walker breakout season though as he owns a 8.16 K/9 and is walking less than a batter per nine with a 1.54 ERA over his first 32.0 innings. He's a top 30 pitcher in terms of FIP (2.95) and he's done well in terms of hard contact with just an 87.8 average exit velocity off of him.
Evan Gattis, Houston Astros - Gattis was optioned to AA on Friday but not necessarily for his performance but rather for him to get reps behind the plate and be a catcher when he returns to the majors. Gattis hasn't played much catcher since his days in Atlanta, but when he does gain C eligibility he's going to get an enormous boost in value. The catcher pool this year has been a graveyard and Gattis would bring 20-25 homer potential to the position over the final four-five months of the season.
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